I really like this game, except for one bit: the fact that the boss comes out when you've done enough damage to the enemy between the levels. It creates this pressure to build a team that's good but not too good, otherwise it'll get you to the king before you're ready. And that's just not as fun to me as building the strongest team under some other type of time pressure.
Not to a relevant degree, though. If you rush to the king, you don't really stand a chance. On the other hand, if you use strategies to actively slow your progress towards the king (rely on spells whenever you can, build as few units as you can get away with in the early game, use inefficient troop placement later on, use the protection spell to knock out your own shields) you can get to one guy that is stronger than the king (equal health, and 3x attack) that can solo the king line and survive with plenty of health left, two guys behind him that that could have taken out that line together if the first one wasn't there, and enough to easily handle everything on each of the other two lines.
Yeah, it was kind of like that, hah! I don't know yet if the update from a few days ago helped much with that (basically, after the more or less the intended turn where you should get to the king, the game scales the king's stats more dramatically than before, and the king stats early were nerfed, just a tad)
With the right synergies you can always win though. I kind of don't want the scaling to be too dramatic so players can also build themselves slowly and get to really lategame stuff, which can be fun! But maybe the king's scaling could be buffed even more, just a bit?
I just played two games where I rushed to the king (I hadn't done that since the update yet) , and I got a turn 9 and turn 10 win, but both required strategizing and were close calls, so I'd say that's a lot better now.
Maybe the king could start scaling very aggressively at around turn 12? That way, a turn 16 win should still be quite possible, but be less anticlimactic. And beating a 50/50 king at turn 20 (which should be very possible) would feel satisfying as well.